Amazon Web Services: Utilizing AWS CodeBuild to Manage Self-Hosted GitHub Action Runners

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AWS CodeBuild now supports self-hosted and managed GitHub Action runners, enabling users to build robust CI/CD capabilities alongside their code and swiftly deploy a pipeline for build, test, and deployment. This improvement comes after AWS revealed a way for customers to define their GitHub Actions steps within any phase of a CodeBuild build specification file. However, with this enhancement, a self-hosted brokerJobs run from GitHub Actions on GitHub.com shifts to a system that the user deploys and manages.

With the recent update, AWS CodeBuild now facilitates the management of GitHub Action runners, allowing teams to seamlessly run GitHub Actions workflow jobs within AWS. For customers overseeing their self-hosted runners on their infrastructure, CodeBuild now offers a secure, scalable, and low-latency solution. Additionally, managed self-hosted GitHub Action runners provide various features like the option to run tests on different hardware and operating systems matching production environments and reducing manual operational tasks by shifting executor management to AWS.

The author of the blog post explores how self-hosted GitHub Action runners managed by AWS function by building and deploying an application to AWS using GitHub Actions. The architecture overview shows how developers submit code changes to GitHub, which triggers CodeBuild to detect the update and run the defined GitHub action workflow that builds and deploys the code to AWS Lambda.

The blog post delves into creating an AWS Lambda function, setting up an AWS CodeBuild project, and crafting a GitHub Action Workflow. Throughout these steps, the author demonstrates how to configure AWS services to work seamlessly with GitHub Actions for effective CI/CD processes. The blog concludes by outlining the benefits of using CodeBuild reserved capacity, enabling the provisioning of a fleet of CodeBuild hosts for persistent build environments. Additionally, it highlights that GitHub Actions runners hosted on CodeBuild are supported in all regions, allowing customers to leverage various compute platforms like lambdaWindows, Linux, and Arm-based instances enhanced by Linux GPUs powered by AWS Graviton processors.

The author, Matt Laver, a Senior Solutions Architect at AWS, emphasizes the importance of DevOps and enjoys helping clients find simple solutions to complex problems. The blog provides insights into setting up GitHub Actions workflows running seamlessly on AWS with CodeBuild, offering users security and convenience features to enhance their CI/CD processes. Users can benefit from native integration with AWS, defining service role permissions using AWS IAM, and leveraging CodeBuild reserved capacity. The documentation for GitHub Action Runner in AWS CodeBuild provides further information on this seamless integration.

Article Source
https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/devops/aws-codebuild-managed-self-hosted-github-action-runners/